Whether economic common sense can prevail over American car culture is yet to be determined. His flair for writing will spur wider interest in the subject. He lays out the issue cleanly and clearly. Grabar, who writes the Metropolis column at Slate, is more storyteller than economist. He’s clear about his bottom line: “Abolish parking minimums and let developers build the amount of parking their clients want.”
Like many books that chronicle the deep problems that afflict humanity, “Paved Paradise” is better at explaining the magnitude of the crisis than providing workable solutions. Everyone already knows how fundamentally the automobile has shaped our physical environment, the residents of Los Angeles County perhaps most of all.
If you live in or near a city - most of us do - the consequences are all around you. If you own a car, you’ve got to park it somewhere. The theme is our culture’s propensity to value automobile ownership over almost everything else, and at a heavy cost. The protagonist - and the villain - is the car. Henry Grabar’s “ Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World” is not a slog it’s a romp, packed with tales of anger, violence, theft, lust, greed, political chicanery and transportation policy gone wrong. Didn’t get far.īut I have news to report. I’ve tried to read a few in the public library. You might expect a book about parking to be a snore. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World
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